“Do you think we’d ever hear the end of it if we didn’t tell him what was going down?” he replied.

“You were gonna leave me out?” Tommy said sadly.

“Jesus, Tom. It ain’t like we’re going to party the feckin’ night away without you. We’re gonna take care of Frank. That ain’t something you should want to be a part of,” I told him.

As seriously as I’d ever seen him, he asked me, “Would you do the same for me?” I should have told him no. Made him get out of the truck. But these boys were the nearest thing I had to brothers. They’d know if I was lying. Looking him square in the eyes, I nodded.

“Ain’t nothing to talk about then, is there?” he asked with a cocky grin.

We drove in silence until we got to the Severn Bridge, and then a thought occurred to me. “How’d you know where we’re going?” I asked Liam.

He paused before answering. “Night Em was taken, I heard the address come through the copper’s radio before he turned it down.”

“And you didn’t think to fucking share this bit of information when I was climbing the fucking walls looking for her?” I shouted at them all.

“Don’t get mad at them about it,” Liam barked at me. “I heard it, and I kept it to meself. The police were heading there anyway to check it out. If you knew the address, you’d have torn that fucking house apart and scared the shit out of her mother. Instead of being there when they found Em, you’d have been behind bars.” His tone told me that he wasn’t sorry.

“That should ’ave been my decision,” I argued with him.

“I did what I thought was right, and I ain’t sorry for it. Now stop your feckin’ bitchin’. I’m telling you now, ain’t I?”

After a few minutes of brooding silence, I’d calmed down enough to acknowledge that he had a point. Besides, after tonight I’d probably be in prison so I needed to build bridges while I could. “Look, I’m sorry, mate. I ain’t exactly rational at the moment. I’d probably have done the same thing if I was you.” The whole truck went completely silent. “What?” I asked them.

“The great Hurricane O’Connell fucking apologizing,” Liam said with a chuckle.

“Yeah, well,” I grumbled, “don’t get fucking used to it. I ain’t wrong often.”

The mood became more serious, the farther into Wales we drove. The rain poured heavily on the road ahead of us and reflected my mood. As I watched one lonely drop of water roll down the window, I thought about the rivers my girl cried as she told me what had happened. Already I knew how badly I’d fucked up, just walking out on her like that. I’d been thinking of my own anger instead of her pain. I hoped she’d forgive me. I hoped that this would bring her some peace. I hoped for a million things when it came to Em. Only time would tell whether I got any of them.

Chapter 20

We pulled up outside a tidy, well-looked-after semidetached house on a quiet street. Immediately I knew Liam had been here before. Not once along the way had he checked the address or asked for directions.

“I’ll knock on the door. He’ll answer it. I’ll kick the shit out of him,” I told them.

“How do you know he’ll answer it?” Tommy asked.

“Because the guy’s a fucking control freak,” Kieran answered for me. “I’d be very fucking surprised if he lets his missus take a piss without asking for permission.” A car was in the drive, and the lights were on but the rain beat down too heavy for me to see much of anything inside the house. None of the guys pushed me or said anything to me when I just sat there watching that house that was so normal-looking and average on the outside. But knowing what had happened inside was the reason Em relived the rape in her dreams over and over, knowing that it was the reason she flinched whenever new people moved too quickly around her, only loosened the rein I had over my temper.

I pictured everything I’d overheard from her nightmare about the rape, and I remembered, with aching heartbreaking clarity, how I felt when he took her and how tiny, beaten, and broken she looked unconscious and bloodied in that hospital bed.

What the fuck was I still doing sitting in this truck? This ended now. I climbed out and slammed the door before any of the guys had chance to move.

Running across the street, I pounded on the front door, and when Frank opened it with a cocky smirk, I pulled my shoulder back and punched him square in the face. Like the spineless sack of shit that he was, he collapsed to the floor unconscious. I’d knocked him out with one punch, and it felt fucking amazing. He’d collapsed in the doorway but I was nowhere near done. Hell, this wasn’t even the end of round one.

I could have picked him up easily but I didn’t want to touch him any more than was necessary to cause him some serious pain. So I grabbed him by the back of the collar and pulled him through the corridor. When I reached the living room, I dropped him, letting his head hit the carpeted floor with an audible thud. As I turned to head back to the front door, it closed gently and in walked Kieran. Sitting himself down on the sofa, he waited for my cue.

“Tommy and Liam?” I asked him.

“Keeping watch,” he murmured. Frank started to come around, and I willed it so I could knock him out again. I wanted to keep doing it until his head was so fucked up he didn’t even know his own name. When he came to, the fucker had the audacity to look up at me and laugh.

“This is priceless,” he joked. “After this, you’ll be looking at a stretch behind bars, and as far as Emily is concerned, I’ll make you feel like a distant memory.”

“You don’t get to fucking say her name. Not to me. Not ever,” I warned him, giving him a swift kick to the ribs, which made him wheeze and cough. “What’s wrong, old man?” I barked at him. “Not so much fun when you’re on the other end of the boot, is it?”

“Fuck you,” he wheezed, dragging himself up onto the seat. I let him but only because it put his face at fist height.

“Fuck me?” I shouted at him. “One punch and a kick to the gut is my way of slow dancing up to the arse kicking I’m about to deliver. When I’m fucking finished with you, your own mother won’t even recognize your fuck-ugly face.” The fucker smiled at me, and without hesitation, I punched him in the face again. Blood streamed from his nose and a cut at the corner of his eye, and he spat more blood onto the floor, not caring that it was his own fucking carpet he was messing up.